Major Players:

• Microsoft
• Google
• Amazon

Cloud Computing & You

by David Byrd

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Everything changes; the world, business, technology, everything. In the year 2000, we had dial-up internet, expensive software suite solutions, IT departments, and branch offices. We still have those things - except if you still have dial-up, stop reading and go get DSL - but we use them in different ways in a different environment. A lot has changed in eight years and all that changing is because technology first changed. Well, it's about to change again.

If you have an online email account or use Google documents, then you already are using "cloud computing." Soon enough, cloud computing will not only be a very good option for business, it may be the best option.

Cloud computing is internet based software. The internet itself is the cloud part of the metaphor. Right now, you can store all of your files on someone else's server. You could have only one source of email and have it be internet-based. You can create and share documents and spreadsheets where neither the files, nor the applications reside on your computer. This is our current form of cloud computing. As we speak, it's getting better.

Do you use QuickBooks for your business's accounting? Intuit has a cloud version. IBM just launched Lotus Notes for the clouds. Google, Zoho, and others have internet based word processing and spreadsheets already. If you want to have a slick phone exchange system, there are many companies that offer a virtual PBX. Need a robust Customer Relationship Manager? Try SalesForce. If you look hard enough, you can probably find a company that is offering a cloud version of most every part of your business.

Obviously, switching to say, a virtual PBX will save you tons of money on equipment costs alone, but there are other reasons for getting excited about cloud computing. As the floodgates open, you will be able to duplicate every aspect of your business in the clouds and your office computers will be reduced to just outlets and workstations.

The beauty of cloud computing is readily apparent to anyone with computer hardware headaches. Are you one of those poor owners who has ever lost time, money, or information due to a server meltdown? With cloud computing, powerful servers with dedicated IT professionals are at your disposal. You don't have to lift a finger! Expansion for your business becomes an easy natural process.

The companies that offer clouds services will expand as necessary too. They will service, maintain, and watch over their servers. They will have the latest anti-virus. They will worry and deal with all of the hardware issues you have now - or have ever had - so you won't have to.

The first downside that comes to mind is keeping track of or integrating several different services for your company. Most likely, you already have many different programs that you have formed together on the computers in your office. The only difference with cloud computing is that your programs will be through the internet.

There isn't one company that provides the cloud computing version of everything for everyone. Most likely, there will never be one. We don't even have that now. What it will be is a shift of labor and hardware requirements for businesses, making them more flexible and coherent.

Hotmail, Yahoo, and Google introduced us to using applications that we didn't purchase and install. Without even noticing, we took our first steps into the clouds.

Advantages:

• No local infrastructure required
• No maintenance costs
• No local backup required
• No Software purchases

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Cloud computing

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid.

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift following the shift from mainframe to client-server in the early 1980s. Details are abstracted from the users, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.

Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.

This frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer. The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents.

Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from another Web service or software like a Web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers. A key element of cloud computing is customization and the creation of a user-defined experience.

Most cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered through common centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers, and typically include SLAs. The major cloud service providers include Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, and Google.